Harvard Limits Facility Access to On-Campus Athletes

Harvard athletes must live on campus in order to participate in workouts and training activities when the spring semester begins.

According to The Harvard Crimson, Harvard director of athletics Erin McDermott emailed the university’s coaches Friday to inform them that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Pandemic Planning and Response Group has decided that athletes living off of the Cambridge, Mass., campus can’t participate in on-campus training due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The rationale is to prioritize students in-residence for any auxiliary spaces,” McDermott wrote, according to The Harvard Crimson. “The in-residence students are being asked to comply with a much stricter compact and the access to other spaces is to provide outlets and additional services to them specifically.

“I know this is disappointing but we now have clarity that seniors and juniors should request housing if they want the ability to train.”

Harvard athletes have been relegated to training since early 2020, as the Ivy League canceled winter postseason events, spring sports, fall sports and winter sports due to COVID-19.

Harvard has opened up more campus housing for the spring, as the university says it will use all 3,100 undergraduate bedrooms. The Harvard Crimson reported that the university will favor upperclassmen, as juniors and seniors who enrolled last semester are invited to live in the dorms.

McDermott’s email noted that if off-campus students are allowed on campus this semester, it would only be for academic and research purposes.

Related content: Ivy League Calls Off All Winter Sports Due to Virus